Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Ever the patron of sports

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Widely respected for his administrative acumen, the former Chief Minister K. Karunakaran, who passed away on Thursday, was an unflagging supporter of sport.

That it was his intervention which helped the State gain the right to host the 1987 National Games is virtually unknown to many.

Kerala, in 1986, was virtually under a crippling financial strain and though the entire administrative apparatus was against the State bidding for the Games, it was Karunakaran's crucial decision to go ahead that finally brought the multi-disciplinary event to the State.

Teaming up with his Finance Minister, K. M. Mani, Karunakaran just waved way all the objections of the officials by announcing his decision. “It is the duty of me and Mani to raise the required funds; your duty is to organise the Games smoothly,” he said at the crucial meeting which was convened at his official chamber in the Secretariat to discuss the prospects of Kerala making a bid to host the glamorous event.

Likewise, it was Karunakaran's quick decision-making which paved the way for the construction of Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium at Kaloor in Kochi. Coming as it is after FIFA placed a ban on the conduct of international tournaments in stadiums without permanent galleries — in the wake of the Heysel stadium tragedy in Brussels — Kerala was almost on the verge of losing its right to host the Jawaharlal Nehru Gold Cup International Tournament in 1995.

And as the Kerala Football Association (KFA) approached him with a request to construct a suitable stadium in Kochi, it did not take much time for Karunakaran to give the go-ahead to the KFA.

A high-level meeting was convened as directed by him within a matter of days and the request cleared.

The fourth largest stadium in the country now stands on 30 acres of land, which once used to be the storage yard of the Kerala Water Authority.

Just, two instances of his prowess of decision-making that benefited sport, challenging the odds.

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